Outside today and pushed on in a few sectors, happily not only did I get plenty of PRs but several trophies with multiple top 3s on Strava. Also did the old faithful climb of drag out of hermitage and despite not pushing 100% with an average of 168bpm and a max of 176, I still had plenty left, but was only 10s off my PR, so, happy all round.

Still losing the fat fight, but my fitness is great.

You can often find a direto for about £500

That’s what I’ve just paid for one. Only set it up on Tuesday but it’s already a big improvement over the very basic Elite Mag Volare I was using. At the moment I’m just using the Elite software as it comes with a year’s free subscription. Did the fitness test last night and will try now to follow the program it’s come up with. I’m sure I’ll move on to Zwift at some point as I can see from this thread just how addictive it is.

I’ve been outdoors way more than on Zwift lately, but yesterday my lad was due home so i was waiting in for him. We were having Vodafone nightmares so i was cruising slowly around London and up Box hill etc… I then paused on the way down Box Hill so i could swap bearings and got a bit frustrated, as i finished the bearings i wanted to finish my ride and had 45s before a race started on a suitable course

“Why not…” i thought… Bring it on.

Small field but as usual, more than ZP results show.
https://www.zwiftpower.com/events.php?zid=182351

Race went off not particularly hard and i found myself at the pointy end in a group of about 10-11 (30 or so in the race), for the first 5-6km i was finding it pretty easy, even up the hill…. But as always with the racing, the faster A/B guys got a gap and pulled away… Damn…. But i was in a group of 3 of us and the other 2 were working well and hard… I spent the next 10km sitting behind… Well, apart from one part where i lost 2s and got dropped, but i powered on and pulled them back, but i was right at the pointy end of my efforts that’s for sure, the HR was flying high and i’d resigned myself to 11th place overall.

Into the last KM there’s a few flats, a few rolling bits and a short but stingy 7-8% up to the line. I was still hanging in and waiting for them to blast off as we hit 400m, then 300m, I thoguth “OK, lets give it a go.” Got the power down and beat the pair of them up the little hill…. Ending up 9th overall and 1st in C (overall as well as on ZP)… So happy with that.

Picked up nearly 5 in the rankings points, which is good too. But as always, their algorithms confuse me as it wasn’t that strong a field or a race and i hardly ever pick up points at the moment… So now i don’t know which type of races to pick, bigger fields or smaller, faster or slower.. I just don’t know. But it moved me up from 82nd to 72nd in C rankings anyway 🙂

I cancelled Zwift last month as we began to get the good weather – I am expecting to subscribe at sometime this week as the rain moves back in!

Another good result weeksy! Time to move to b class and test your metal I think !
I tried to do the mega pretzel route on Sunday night in training for the velo but I got bored before my legs got tired. 3.5 hours on the trainer and a very numb bum. Did epic kom reverse and normal as well as a load of other climbs but it was about half 11 so I went to bed. Entered London classic crit type race tonight which should suit me as it’s fairly flat.

Oh… Errrrrm well….

https://www.zwiftpower.com/events.php?zid=183265

I did a ride today outdoors, nothing crazy only an hour, but this evening came and i ate too much so thought I’d zwift race.

The Revo TT was the next shortish one coming up, so jumped into the Drop Shop and bought an S-Works TT bike and went racing… In the warm up i was riding round the new desert route and clicked wrong on the gears into top… So 42/11 (maybe 42/12 never counted) but at 76rpm i was putting out 340w… Which weirdly wasn’t causing me too many problems… WEIRD

So thought i’d try it in the race, it was the UCI worlds so hilly for me, hillier than suits me anyway. So off we went at 340w…. Hmmmm this isn’t too bad… my big fat legs seem to have a use at last ! I basically ran away with C and was only 3s off silver in B. Crazy… I also got an FTP upgrade from 284w to 296w…. Oh… errrrm wow…

With a 3.5w/kg average for 20 and a 306w NP it means i’m going to be enforced a B… WOO ! HOO ! and indeed WOOHOO ! I’ve been waiting a LONG time for that…

Thanks for all the fish 🙂

p.s Well done to Blader for a brilliant win this morning 🙂

Bad luck :0)

Not feeling great and legs felt rubbish but had to get on and did the DIRT chase race.
Couldn’t hold the front Cs on the climb to the Jungle but nearly dragged my group back to them before the downhill but couldn’t quite get there.
After Bs and As started passing finally got a group we could tag onto and work to the finish. Absolutley no sprint left but in the end numbers were pretty good. Only 16 seconds down on the first realistic Cs who were in the group ahead. Winning C was putting numbers out like Weeksy ;0)

Did my longest zwift race to date: 50km / 5 laps of Central Park; 1hr 30. Had a bored point at around 45 minutes but managed to push through that. Only two of us in the group (D) and I trailed in 8 minutes behind the group winner. However his time would’ve put him in to 4th in the B group, where-as the three other riders I rode with placed top 4 in C group, so that was a better benchmark. I’ll be back in to C group next ride.

Then I did the BRT Ages event on Friday and in a group of five in D group, the first four would’ve put them into the top 5 in A group.

I don’t see the point of ‘racing’ in a group so displaced from a person’s capability. It was a bit irksome as it meant there was no one for me to pace against. Pulled out after two laps. Highlight was a mid-race ride-on from weeksy. Then I asked the group winner why they raced out of category. Haven’t had a reply yet. I’ll probably get flamed now.

It’s a very valid question matey. I wish I knew. Always when racing as C I’d try to stick with fastest C but when they’re 4.4w/kg that isn’t working.

Presumably there are a lot of people at Zwift and ZP trying to figure out a way to do this. I’m all for the “mass start and sort it out after” approach to things; either using historic power or generating results and categories based on the distribution of riders power / times.

In a real world race it’s not like the rider in front has a big label advertising their theoretical performance on their back. Keep pre-selected categories for workouts, then let races run on their own.

There didn’t seem to be any issues with some of the Tour of Watopia events where everyone entered in the same category but which still ran more-or-less as a race.

Nice work weeksy. You changed turbo bike as well?

For races I think either completely separate cats or mass start under one class and sort it out later work best. The first stops people hanging onto higher cats while the second no one knows what the others are capable of.

You changed turbo bike as well?

Nope, just put the 42t narrow wide on..

https://www.zwiftpower.com/events.php?zid=183766

Another race, same layout, much faster with draft etc. Same hill problem though, waaaaaay too fat. Decent power and performance.
I still don’t get their ranking points system lol

@doordonot isn’t the ages race league races age categories instead of ability. ie D is 60+ or something?

I prefer categories. I’d also prefer them to be based on a points system rather than W/kg but I think the w/kg works fine apart from letting people enter out of category.

There could be some open races with 1 category and you have to do 3 of them before being able to jump into categorised races and then Zwift should auto categorise you from there before the race start so you know who your competition is.

As a B I dragged Cs to the line to be beaten by them as I was more interested in keeping a B at bay who was chasing over the last 3km. As a C I try to beat Bs but more interested in saving myself to beat Cs who can stay in my group or shaking them out on the last climb and hopefully take some Bs who might give me a few pulls to the line.

I do the Tour of Watopia stuff but it’s either just a ride or I specifically target a segment (Volcano climb maybe) rather than worry about being 212th out of 976. If all races were like that I don’t think I’d bother as much.

Tom, oh yeah, that’s it – d’oh! I couldn’t figure out why the winner of group D has been normally racing group A. He was a quick 55 year old, pushing out something like 5.5w/kg most the way round.

Could be age doping though ;0)

Everyone almost needs a zwift passport so you can’t fiddle your age, height and weight

While age and height wouldn’t be an issue constant re validation of weight would be a pita!

TBH i don’t care about a small bit of optimism on weight etc. If someone is dropping a few KG i’m ok with that..

What really bothers me is the ability for people who are clearly in the wrong Cats to enter any Cat they fancy. So i’d like a Zwift Verified race series in that context. You can only enter if you’re ZP registered and associated performances etc. Just to stop the C/D guys entering and then putting out 4+ etc.

Well I am back on Zwift. Doing a structured training program though. I am doing the Jennride in about 9 weeks time and so have signed up for the Gran Fondo Training Plan. Should hopefully help to improve the fitness with some actual outdoor rides and HIIT at the gym.

Only concern is that I am on holiday for a week. Have factored this in but as the workouts are only released at a certain time I am not sure how the software will deal with me having a week off!

Everyone almost needs a zwift passport so you can’t fiddle your age, height and weight

but then you have issues between trainers, wheels on, wheels off, power meters reading high, a whole myriad of issues

essentially the only person you are racing and trying to better is yourself,

So thought i’d try it in the race, it was the UCI worlds so hilly for me, hillier than suits me anyway. So off we went at 340w…. Hmmmm this isn’t too bad… my big fat legs seem to have a use at last ! I basically ran away with C and was only 3s off silver in B. Crazy… I also got an FTP upgrade from 284w to 296w…. Oh… errrrm wow…

With a 3.5w/kg average for 20 and a 306w NP it means i’m going to be enforced a B… WOO ! HOO ! and indeed WOOHOO ! I’ve been waiting a LONG time for that…

Thanks for all the fish 🙂

awesome stuff, time to go re-read the first page now

I think its interesting that the power went up with a cog change. Wonder if that means you were just too strong for the smaller ring. Either way the most recent two results show a really decent power uplift, well done :D.

I haven’t zwifted for three weeks, hoping to halt that decline with three laps of leg snapper at 8pm tonight. I’ve not raced this course for absolutely ages (4-5 months). Will be interesting to see how it goes as I’m much fitter than I was back then.

I’ve also recently bought a gravel bike and am currently trying to decide if I should use this on the turbo. The bike itself will probably not see that much outdoor usage (500 miles a year) so putting the back wheel on is not really an issue (that and I have to store my bikes with one wheel off anyway due to the tightness of access to the bike store). The modern 105 is nicer than old ultegra and is 11 speed rather than 10. Only downside I can see is 50t big ring vs the 53t my turbo bike has, however I’d only loose one top gear according to a gear ratio calculator. My old road bike isn’t worth that much but it would mean one less bike to store.

I think its interesting that the power went up with a cog change. Wonder if that means you were just too strong for the smaller ring. Either way the most recent two results show a really decent power uplift, well done :D.

If you’d seen my legs, both my thighs and calves are massive sods, so it’s no major shock. I can turn the same sort of 330w power in the next gear down, but i’m spinning harder and seem to find it harder both to maintain the power and spin the cadence. When sticking it on the smaller cog and grinding out the power i actually find it pretty OK on a HR perspective.

Using Strava and looking at the first 8km of the race, which is the Richmond flat section i averaged 325w for that… It’s only really when we hit the inclines that my power dropped. Dropping to 280w on the way downhill (with some recovery, but mostly because i was sitting happily in the lead group so no reason to power on) and then 274w for the hilly sections at the end as i’m rubbish on hills. I’m fairly convinced that in a Richmond Flat i can average 215-225w overall for it.
Sadly, in many ways that’s still only decent enuogh for the lower end of B on many courses… 90kg is just too heavy at times and i get destroyed on the hills…. But of course to an extent it’s swings and roundabouts as the lightweights have to stick out their power on the flats to match me. Sadly i’m not sure it’s truely fair as i think the light guys gain more on the hills than they lose on the flat. But overall i think i’m ‘better’ now than i was… Mostly through luck more than anything as i didn’t suddenly become faster/fitter overnight, but i’m not complaining 🙂

I don’t know about getting faster and fitter overnight, this morning after a weekend of drinking guinness and vodka I did my fastest lap of the Richmond UCI course taking 1 minute off the previous time from a cold start at 6am.

The second lap was lacking the all out effort and was a minute thirty slower but I am wondering where the speed came from.

I feel your pain when it comes to hill climbing and weight, hauling 100kg around inevitably slows the hill climbs down a little, my choice of bike probably doesn’t help either (currently on a Trek Madone with Zipp 808 / Super9 wheels) but anything below 3% it seems super fast and kinda makes up for not being a good climber.

My biggest problem is fitting race and other group events into my training time but at 6am my mind is just not into that and the events are quite scarce!

Begining to wonder if I will ever race that course again. Logged on early as I knew there would be an update. Damn thing crashed so had to uninstall and reinstall completely missing the start. Grr. Try again tomorrow on the kiss choice race on the same circuit.

Go in B they said, you’ll do well in B.

Or, you’ll come last lol

https://www.zwiftpower.com/events.php?zid=184178

Oh how the mighty have fallen.

Took fastest lap of the day on the jungle loop today.  Probably didn’t last but it was satisfying for a while.

Tightest race I’ve done today (I say race, it was ToW stage 1 catch-up). I came in 5th overall. 0.125s separating me from second place.

https://www.zwiftpower.com/events.php?zid=180022

I’m assuming the winner rides for a pro team as he rocketed off by himself and finished several minutes ahead of us.

Or, you’ll come last lol

look at the weights of them though, apart from the 1 who did 4w/kg, id not be dispirited by that

my subs still active, mrs off work so able to venture outside more at the moment, spun my legs round Fuego Flats today after a fast gravely 75km this morning, barely looked at the screen

Lol I was kidding matey. I’d have got 2nd in C which on that course is excellent for me. I also destroyed all my Strava bests for climb bits despite having attacked them before in a 1 lap context, this time I did them when racing and knowing I had to keep going etc.

I’m well happy still

Finally back on it last night. 4 laps if the leg snapper. Reasonable sized field with a few powerhouses and one Pro. I was expecting a few of them would break away on the leg snapper but it didn’t happen. The hill wasn’t as bad as I remembered. Still hard work and I was glad to see the top each time but not as bad (I also set a PR up it so was definitely trying).

Lap two the pace seemed to jump a little. One of the other riders was trying to goad the pro into trying something to ‘make it interesting’. The rest of us were quite happy with the status quo. Coming up to the sprint it finally worked and he took off like a scalded cat for a minute. This triggered a huge pace increase as the 10 of us tried to stay in touch. He eased a little and the group caught back up only for him to go again immediately 😜. Point made I think. I was off the back by 3s at this point and was pretty much resigned to doing 2 laps on own when fortunately the pace slackened. I had to keep my HR well in the red for a couple more minutes to close the gap again but once reattached managed to stay there till the end.

After the hill on lap 3 the pro pushed again but this time kept on the gas and eased off the front and disappeared off to victory. Though we tried to follow I don’t think anyone really had the legs to do it. It then got cagey with plenty of energy conservation (my HR got as low as 142 before the last time up the hill). On the final sprint section I picked up a aero. My legs were fairly dead so started plotting with another BRT rider to give them a lead out. Best laid plans didn’t work though as someone went from 1.5k (we were planning around 5-600m). This pre sprint sprint did me in and I had nothing in the legs for more than and elevated cruise in the sprint proper. Still 7th over all after a fairly big gap and still a bit ill. Happy enough with that.

https://www.zwiftpower.com/events.php?zid=100184158

Another decent effort there weeksy. Equaled your 5 minute best. 👍

Did Tour stage 2 last night, might have been quicker walking. Ran on Monday and my legs felt heavy to start with and didn’t warm up as logged on with two minutes to spare. Not my finest hour.

Hitting it hard off the line is always hard without a warmup. I always attempt at least 10mins of spinning around with some short 4-500W bursts @ 110 rpm. Find it helps make 90 rpm seem easier.

I supposed to be running a half marathon on Sunday (with barely any run training ☹️). Cardio fitness from zwift is the only reason I’m going to make it. Any other zwift this week is going to be lower intensity to keep the legs loose (till I do a weeksy and find a interesting race at a good time 😜).

raced in real life last night, first time for 2 years local summer cx/mtb series, 45 minutes/7 laps of a 2.1km loop, came 3rd, top 3 were MTBs, 4/5th were cx, did 274w for 47 minutes, which isn’t bad, no let up at all

Well done DR, do you feel it helped ?

Nice work DR.

Well done DR, do you feel it helped ?

certainly from doing zwift races where its on from the off and never lets off, gets you used to that constant state of pushing,

Raced the same race just under 2 years ago, same course, similar conditions, same bike and i did 247w

I took on STWs resident B expert today, Blader.

https://www.zwiftpower.com/events.php?zid=185097

The race went well… right until the last 40s anyway. The A/B set off behind the C/D groups due to the way the slip-routes are laid out. But the fast guys soon make that up. So it’s into the race proper… A/B/Cs all in the same group as always on this course. With both me and Blader sitting in it nicely. I tried a couple of minor kicks off at the front, but was clear that wasn’t going to happen. Middle of lap2 i missed a little kick in pace, just got it a tiny bit wrong on the 1-2% false flat bit and got dropped by 2s. Ooops. Luckily i wasn’t alone in this mistake and me and 2 others hit the power just about right and made it back in about 500m later. Just after the line onto lap 3 a couple of As went off the front, i thought about it, but soon thought better of it and sat in the group instead. With 1/2 a lap to go i was doing OK, but we were into the pesky false flat again by the roundabouts/monuments and i was hanging in the best i can….
I also know that 0.4km on the layout is wrong and that’s actually about 650m as it re-sets with 300m as it gets confused… As we came down to the hairpin turn a few guys kicked, they went, i stayed…. I did manage a TINY bit of a power increase late on to hold on an beat a guy i was racing, but i lost 5s to Blader in the last 500m.
Last in B again LOL… but 302w is only 1w down on my new best ever. So it’s hard to be upset by it all.
Did my best…

Again nice work Weeksy, looks like you’ve hit a decent vein of form at the moment.